Taft

27 th American President: William
Howard Taft
Background
• William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• Son of a prominent attorney who had served in the
Grant cabinet and later as American minister to
Russia and Austria-Hungary.
• Taft graduated from Yale University in 1878 and
earned a law degree from the Cincinnati Law School
two years later.
• Appointed an assistant prosecuting attorney for
Hamilton County and worked briefly for the Internal
Revenue Service before opening a law practice in
1883.
• He married Helen Herron in 1886. She was a very
important influence on his life, providing the drive
and ambition he lacked.
• In 1887, he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the
Ohio superior court and was elected to that position
the following year.
• In 1890, they moved to Washington and became a
solicitor general in the Benjamin Harrison
administration.
• Taft became a friend and lunch partner of Theodore
Roosevelt, who was then a civil service
commissioner.
• He was next appointed to the U.S. Circuit Court in
1892, and served until becoming a law professor and
dean in Cincinnati.
Rise to Presidency
• Taft became the most important member of
Roosevelt's cabinet - administering all foreign
affairs, including the continuing situations in the
Philippines and in Cuba.
• Taft traveled all over the world to speak for his
country, and for a time even served as "acting"
Secretary of State for a few weeks after the
death of John Hay.
• As Roosevelt's advisor, Taft earned the
President's trust, and was a natural choice to
become the successor to the Presidency.
• Roosevelt, who had promised not to run for
reelection again, threw his entire political weight
behind the "heir to the Progressive crown."
• On the weight of this support, William Howard
Taft easily won the Republican nomination, and
became the 27th President of the United States.
PIRATES
• Political:
- Payne-Aldrich Tariff
- Ballinger-Pinchot affair
- Taft wins Republican nomination over
Roosevelt
- Federal Reserve Act
- Seventeenth Amendment passed
- Wilson defeats Taft and Roosevelt for
presidency
- Underwood Tariff Act
• Intellectual:
- The idea of world peace and international
arbitration was the best way to effect the end
of war
• Religious:
- None
• Arts:
- None
• Technology:
- Federal Trade Commission established
- Lusitania torpedoed and sunk
PIRATES (cont)
• Economy/Education:
- Standard Oil Antitrust case
- Sixteenth Amendment
- US Steel Corporation antitrust suit
• Social:
- Huerta takes power in Mexico
- US occupation of Vera Cruz,
Mexico
- World War I starts in Europe
Key Domestic Policy Issues
• He tackled the tariff boldly, on the
one hand encouraging reformers to
fight for lower rates, and then on
the other hand cutting deals with
conservative leaders that kept
overall rates high resulted the
Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909
but it was too high for most reform.
• He launched 90 antitrust suits,
including one against the country’s
largest corporation, U.S. Steel, for
an acquisition that Roosevelt
personally had approved.
• Because of his deep belief in “The
Law” as the scientific device that
should be used by judges to solve
society’s problems, Taft considered
himself a “progressive”
Key Foreign Policy Issue
• He actively pursued what he termed
“Dollar Diplomacy” to enhance the
economic development of less-
developed nations of Latin America and
Asia through American investment in
their infrastructures.
• As a president, Taft believed the idea of
world peace and that international
arbitration was the best way to effect the
end of war. He was able to gain several
reciprocity and arbitration treaties.
• In 1910, he persuaded congressional
Democrats to support a free trade, treaty
with Canada,but with the Liberal
Canadian government who arranged the
treaty was turned out of office and the
treaty collapsed.
• However, in 1910 and 1911, Taft
secured the ratification of arbitration
treaties that he had successfully
arranged with France and Britain.
Quotes from William Taft
• Failure to accord credit to anyone
for what he may have done is a
great weakness in any man.
• No tendency is quite so strong in
human nature as the desire to lay
down rules of conduct for other
people.
• Socialism proposes no adequate
substitute for the motive of
enlightened selfishness that to-day
is at the basis of all human labor
and effort, enterprise and new
activity.
• We are all imperfect. We can not
expect perfect government.
William Taft’s Successes
• He was known as one of the foremost
advocates of world peace and arbitration.
• President Taft signed a law to make New
Mexico and Arizona states since they were
territories. He also signed a law to let the state
choose their own senates.
• In 1909, the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act passed.
This changed the tariff rates from 46 to 41%.
• One of Taft’s key policies was known as Dollar
Diplomacy. This was the idea that America
would use the military and diplomacy to help
promote U.S. business interests overseas. For
example, in 1912 Taft sent marines to
Nicaragua to help stop a rebellion against the
government because it was friendly to
American business interests.
• Following Roosevelt into office, Taft continued
to enforce antitrust laws. He was key in
bringing down the Standard Oil Company in
1911. Also during Taft’s term in office, the
sixteenth amendment was passed that allowed
the U.S. to collect income taxes.
• Building of most of the Panama Canal
• He also had peacefully settled a number of
international disputes, launched the most
ambitious attempt yet made to obtain world
peace, and steadily maintained a policy of
neutrality toward Mexico.
William Taft’s Failures
• His inability to obtain Canadian
reciprocity and general arbitration
treaties
• His poor handling of the Ballinger-
Pinchot affair
• He was unable to follow the Roosevelt
policies, ultimately leading to the split of
the Republican Party
• Alienated some members of his
administration
• His treatment of the insurgents, which
split his party and allowed Democrats
and progressive Republicans to win
Congress in 1910 and the presidency
and Congress in 1912.
• He failed to earn profits for American
business or obtain economic and
political stability or peace
• His parsimoniousness, he did little to
strengthen the military power of the
nation.
• He refused to do anything for blacks or
to grant independence to the Filipinos
One Word: Inconsistent
• Had a campaign promise to lower the
tariffs but was ultimately defied with the
Payne-Aldrich Bill that was passed (also
partly influenced by his passivity and
inactiveness), which increased tariffs
instead
• So-called supposedly conservationist
Taft supported Richard Ballinger in his
opening of public lands in Wyoming,
Montana, and Alaska to corporate
development, and dismissed fellow
conservationist Chief Gifford Pinchot of
the Agriculture Department’s Division of
Forestry who was definitely not in favor
of the act
• Trusted by Theodore Roosevelt to
continue his policies but later challenged
it and became his rival
• Considered himself a “progressive” but
ultimately sided with the Old Guard
anyway
Taft for President today?
• Although he has a good reputation
of busting more trusts than
Roosevelt did in a shorter amount
of time, he would not have been a
good president today
• His indecisiveness would not be fit
for a challenging obstacle that the
country is facing today (economic
recession, etc.)
• He is considerably inactive and
passive
• Had little talent for leadership
• His sensitivity to criticism would
further interfere with his tasks and
responsibilities as president,
especially with the recession that
the nation is currently facing
Cabinet
• Vice President: James S. Sherman
(1909-12)
• Secretary of State: Philander C. Knox
(1909-13)
• Secretary of the Treasury: Franklin
MacVeagh (1909-13)
• Secretary of War: Jacob M. Dickinson
(1909-11); Henry L. Stimson (1911-13)
• Attorney General: George W.
Wickersham (1909-13)
• Postmaster General: Frank H.
Hitchcock (1909-13)
• Secretary of the Navy: George von L.
Meyer (1909-13)
• Secretary of the Interior: Richard A.
Ballinger (1909-11); Walter Lowrie
Fisher (1911-13)
• Secretary of Agriculture: James
Wilson (1909-13)
• Secretary of Commerce and Labor:
Charles Nagel (1909-13)
Post- presidential activities
• appointed the Chancellor Kent Professor of
Law and Legal History at Yale Law School
• made an honorary member by the Yale
Chapter of Acacia Fraternity
• elected president of the American Bar
Association
• spent a lot of his time writing books and
newspaper articles, most notably his series on
American legal philosophy
• continued to advocate for world peace by
urging nations to enter into arbitration treaties
with each other and promoting the idea of a
League of Nations even before the First World
War began
• founded the League to Enforce Peace
• co-chairman of National War Labor Board
between 1917 and 1918
• nominated by President Warren G. Harding on
June 30, 1921 to become Chief Justice of the
United States, serving until February 3, 1930
• traveled to Great Britain to study the
procedural structure of the English courts in
1922
• retired as Chief Justice on February 3, 1930
due to ill health and died five weeks later on
March 8 from complications of heart disease,
high blood pressure, and inflammation of the
bladder
• became the first president to be buried at
Arlington National Cemetery
Election
• · In the 1908 campaign, Taft was
chosen by Theodore Roosevelt as his
successor to continue “[his] policies]”
• · Ample-girthed, jovial, passive, and
mild progressive Taft easily defeated
William Jennings Bryan of the
Democratic Party, polling 321 electoral
votes to 162 for Bryan (Socialist
Eugene V. Debs surprisingly earned
420,793 votes)
• · With Taft having won the nomination
for the Republican Party, Roosevelt
pulled his delegates and created the
Progressive Party in the presidential
election of 1912, thus officially splitting
the Republican Party
• · As the Republican vote is divided by
Taft and Roosevelt, Democratic Wilson
wins the presidential election of 1912
Video
Bibliography
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Howard_Taft
• http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/williamhowardtaft
• http://www.answers.com/topic/william-h-taft
• http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/taft
• http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/whtaft.html
• http://wikipedia.org
• http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Grant-Eisenhower/William-Howard-Taft-
Conclusions.html#ixzz0kHqM9yFP
• http://www.presidentprofiles.com/Grant-Eisenhower/William-Howard-Taft-
Conclusions.html#ixzz0kHrA16AM
• http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1009.html
• http://americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_rise_of_william_howard_taf
t
• The American Pageant: Thirteenth Edition
Team Members